Thursday, June 14, 2012

Intern Update: Feeding, Cleaning, and Sampling

Intern update

Well we have been making our summer husbandry interns work
hard the last few weeks! May 23rd we took a road trip down to Warm
Springs National Fish Hatchery to pick up 2,000 juvenile sturgeon, which is
their primary job this summer. We have research and conservation projects that
need field work this summer as well so there is plenty to do. It takes everyone to keep TNACI going!

Stephen Floyd is our full-time intern this summer. Stephen
comes to us from Virginia where he just graduated from Roanoke College. He has
a passion for southeastern fish and is especially intrigued by Southern
Appalachian Brook Trout so he is working on an independent study of this
species this summer.

Stephen cleaning sturgeon trough.

Jessica holding her first sturgeon

Jessica Hubbuch is graduate student at the University of
Tennessee here in Chattanooga and is working with us as a part-time intern this
summer. She is currently working on some urban stream surveys with UTC and
organizes their museum of biological specimens. She is working hard this summer
to help TNACI organize, label and find homes for many cool specimens that we
have been saving over the years from the Aquarium. Scientists are always on the
lookout for preserved specimens to use as teaching tools believe it or not!

Louise McCallie and Josh Oliver are also working with TNACI
this summer. They are both volunteering their time to help us a few days each
week. Louise is a 2011 graduate of GPS here in Chattanooga and just finished
her freshman year at Lehigh University so we are glad to have her while she is
home for the summer. Josh is finishing up his biology degree at Dalton State
and is helping us out one day each week to get some fisheries experience.

Whew what a crew! We are lucky to have so much good help
this summer. These guys are excited to be here and ready to work hard and learn
lots!

Most of the intern work has focused on caring for our lake
sturgeon babies so far. When sturgeon
are so little (many of them were 1.5 cm on May 23rd!), they need to
be fed often. The first few weeks we fed four times each day so someone had to
be at work at 7am and someone had to stay each evening until 8:30. Now that
they are so much bigger (up to 8.5 cm!) we have reduced that to three times per
day. Regardless, each time we feed there is cleaning to do. The fish eat for an
hour or two with the pumps turned off and the water calm to make it easier for
them to “hunt”. If the food sits on the
bottom too long it begins to degrade, which can make the water unhealthy for
the small fish, so the tanks are cleaned shortly after the fish eat. It’s a daily cycle of feeding and cleaning...
much like a human baby!

We also have to sort and measure fish so all of the individuals
in each tank are approximately the same size.
This minimizes competition for food. Each week we take a series of
measurements on a sub-sample of fish to keep up with how fast they are growing
so that we can adjust feeding amounts and make other changes as needed. At
first, all 2,000 fish were in one trough tank. Currently they have been sorted
into 4 tanks and as they continue to grow they will be divided into 6 troughs.
This extra space helps the fish to grow but it also increases the amount of work
it takes to keep everything clean. Did I mention we clean a lot?

Measuring sturgeon

Our interns also get the chance to go in the field and help
with some of our conservation projects.
Last week we went to the Conasauga River to do some surveys for
Conasauga Logperch (Percina jenkinsi). Everyone paddled kayaks down the river and
snorkeled in a part of the river that we had not surveyed before. We were assessing the habitat along this
stretch of river and of course, looking for our target species. Unfortunately
we didn’t find any Conasauga Logperch, but there was still a lot of aquatic
wildlife to be seen so we took pictures of holiday darters, tadpoles, Mobile Logperch, turtles and insects. It was a long day but worth the effort.

Evan and Louise on the Conasauga River

River Cooter

Holiday Darter

Musk Turtle

Later this summer we will be working at the Colvard Springs restoration site and collecting fish for the Aquarium and ongoing research projects. Stay tuned to hear more about all the work we are doing this summer at TNACI while we have all this great help!